Page 99 of Winter With You

‘No,’ Luca said. ‘So I can kiss you.’

He leaned in but she quickly stepped back and he felt the rejection land harder than it should as she walked towards the windows. He watched her as she looked out over the city.

‘I do want to kiss you,’ she said, still facing the view and not him. ‘I really really want to kiss you and also do all the things we did in your apartment and also all the moves we didn’t get to finish. And perhaps different moves that don’t even have names yet.’

‘O-K,’ he answered, feeling slightly less unwanted.

‘But you need to find out some things about me first. All the things. The things I’ve held back my whole life. Because you’ve only got to know Gabriella Felix at maybe 50 per cent most of the time, edging up towards 60 per cent because, for some reason the universe decided that you needed a bit more than anyone else and I listened and ran with it.’

‘OK, well,’ he said softly. ‘The same kinda goes for me too. With my… family drama and the whole⁠—’

‘The Sopranos thing?’

‘Are you mocking my real-life situation and comparing it to an HBO TV show?’ he asked, teasingly. ‘Because you should be careful with that.’

She turned around and faced him. ‘Why? Will I end up like Uncle Louie?’

‘Maybe,’ he answered.

Her eyes widened as she walked back towards him. ‘Shit, you really have an Uncle Louie?’

‘Doesn’t everyone have an Uncle Louie?’ He waited a beat until she was right there opposite him and then he laughed. ‘Actually, I’m kidding. I don’t have an Uncle Louie.’

She struck out, but he caught her arm before she could make contact and held it hard. ‘Careful, Gabriella,’ he said. ‘You don’t want to mess with a Marcello.’

She inched her body closer. ‘Mmm, maybe that’s exactly what I want to do.’

All the professional code of conduct was falling away fast, but he had restraint and he could apply it here. He took a step back this time and nodded. ‘OK, good. So, in the changing area are the outfits I have picked out for the bookstore event. Let’s see what you think.’

‘See what I think?’ she asked him. ‘How about instead, we see what I feel.’

He smiled then and, as he recalled one of the first conversations they’d ever had, he watched the most confident version of Gabriella he had ever seen head behind the curtain.

59

RIZZOLI BOOKSTORE, BROADWAY

‘This is career suicide, you know that, right?’ Cheyenne stated.

‘Appalling choice of words, Cheyenne,’ Gabriella bit back.

She was nervous. It was evening, less than an hour before the event at the beautiful bookstore began and Luca wasn’t here yet. She needed him to be here. Not just with the outfit they had decided on together but with his soothing persona. Currently they were waiting on the third floor of this iconic building amid literature on fashion, art and design, with elegant, glittering chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. It was exactly the right place to talk about her beloved sister.

‘You know I recommended to All Chapters that we pull the event,’ Cheyenne continued, pressing icons on her iPad screen. ‘I don’t know if they’re too shocked by all the revelations to reply or whether my emails have dropped into spam or whether the whole of the British Isles have a power outage, but no one has answered me as to what to do about this immediate awful situation.’

‘Well, this “awful situation”, otherwise known as “the truth” is my life,’ Gabriella said, the hairs on the back of her neck rising. ‘Just saying.’

‘You haven’t even told me who is going to be asking the questions I’m not allowed to know. It’s all very stressful and not something that can easily be mitigated.’

‘Spun you mean,’ Gabriella said. ‘And good.’

‘So, who is it?’

Who was it? Well, there had only been one person in her mind when she’d thought about how this event might play out, but equally, it was a weight of responsibility she had always tried to avoid them having to carry. But what had changed was when she had thought of alternative options and discussed them with the only person who mattered, someone had volunteered. Shakily at first, with deep reservation and nervousness but, in the end, with bravery and total insistence.

‘It’s me,’ Phoebe said boldly.

Gabriella looked to her niece who was sitting on a small footstool, an Albert Camus book in her hands, staring up at Cheyenne.